Why does WP always alter my copy/pasted articles??

So yah, what's up with that? I can spend hours trying to adjust what WP ruined and it still won't come out as the original file.

I'm aware of a function called WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You get)that exists on forums and allows you to copy/paste articles without any alterations- and so I'm wondering if such a function exists on WP? Life would be much easier if it did :/

Do you use another editor? I use the Notepad that came with my Windows XP. It took me forever to figure out why I always lost the format and I had to go back and fix everything. I figured out that because I clicked save on Notepad and then didn't entirely close Notepad and reopen, that's why it lost the format. I insanely click save every few seconds after a couple of times of losing hours of work when the power would go out.

If you're copying from elsewhere on the internet, you're probably picking up all kinds of tags you can't see, and WP.com is just reading them and executing the instructions. If you use Notepad, you won't have those problems.

It does take away features like spell-checking, but there are a couple of other editors like Notepad which are very good; I've heard good things about TurboPad and I think EditExt even has a spell-checker built in. I've not used either but they should work the same way.

The other thing is just to write it in Word, then paste that into Notepad, and from there into WP; that'll strip the formatting but let you use the spell-check first. And the Paste from Word icon usually does a pretty good job.

They're basically just replacements for Notepad. I'm no expert on how they work but as I understand it, they don't support any kind of formatting at all; they just support plain text and so they strip everything else out (bold, italics, spacing, etc). Word has it's own standards no-one else follows and that's what causes problems. Plain text is more universal.

I use Notepad a lot for editing websites and that's how I first noticed it; it just gives you a lot more control and if you know the right tags, the result is much better, cleaner. I hope that makes sense. :)

The other thing you could try is an offline editor like BlogDesk. I use that and it's great; it definitely has a spell-checker, the formatting's fine, and you can write posts whenever you want - even on the rare days when WP is down! :)

I don't think many of these editors will do that; if you look in the WP editor itself, you'll see even they don't have an option to change font size or type. The problem is that not every computer uses the same fonts. So if you were to use a font or a size that I can't support, it might not display the blog properly. And it can add those formatting tags which can be troublesome, like with Word.

You could check out a couple of other editors. I know a lot of people like Windows Live Writer; as it's Microsoft, they might have a font size setting. And Ecto is very good; that definitely has font sizes, but it's not free. I think it's about $20. They have a trial version though.

I don't make a lot of font changes, so I'll usually just do them afterwards in the editor; it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. And if you know the tags, you can do it in something like Notepad anyway; you just won't see it until you post it. That's what I meant about Notepad giving you more control. :)http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/06/12/can-i-change-my-font-font-size/

Now here's a funny coincidence: I've just been looking at a new web-editor, WriteToMyBlog. I think it does everything you want; spell-check, font size (even different fonts). I can't get it to connect to WP yet but if you just click the Text/HTML tab and paste the text into the WP code tab, it works perfectly. No formatting issues I can see. This might actually be the best option. :)http://writetomyblog.com/

Ah I see. I'll try some of the editors you've suggested a little later.

On a similar note, I tried pasting word articles in WP editor as plain text (in stead of pasting is as word) and spent like 30 (if not 40) minuttes adjusting the text- in hopes of things comming out differently this time- and nothing. It still has a mind of its own :/

That's strange. Did you paste directly from Word? Because if it's still directly from Word, it'll still have some kind of formatting on it. Really the only way is to write in Word, copy it and paste into Notepad, then copy it from Notepad and paste it into WP. If you do that, I don't think you should have problems. Or use the Paste to Word icon; that works quite well (#16F).http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/05/15/what-do-all-the-icons-mean/

I sympathise, btw. Blogging is a major headache sometimes, but once you get used to how things work everything just falls into place. And we have a great community around WP; this is the kind of thing we're here for. :)

Do you have a link to your blog, btw, or one of the posts you're talking about? If it helps I might be able to have a look and work out what's going on.

I think there was probably still some formatting with it. The problem is that they encode characters differently, so even if you strip it in Word, it's still in Word, if that makes sense, so there's always the risk. And it's not just Word - it's with OpenOffice or any word processor.

Your post doesn't look too bad; it's mainly the bullets and some formatting like that changing the spacing. And there's some underlining which makes me think I should click it like a link! I think if you were to paste it into WP using the Paste to Word icon, it'd solve almost all of the problems. Other than that, just try Notepad or another editor... you seem to be on the right track. :)

I think a lot of us just like to help, particularly new users; we're not all experts, but we've been using WP long enough to know how some things work. The community is really one of the strongest features of WP; it's what keeps me hanging around. :)

I think WordPress.com deliberately de-emphasizes graphic control over the blog, in order to drive those bloggers with a serious interest in controlling the look of the blog either to the CSS upgrade or to a self-hosted version of WP. As you know, there's almost no limit to what the mind's eye can dream up, but because of the software here it's very difficult to put it into action. It would take a lot of work on WP's part, and a great deal of ongoing support, to support graphically sophisticated blogging, so they just don't do it.

Several times staff have remarked that blogging at WP.com is about the content, not about the look. This is where their emphasis lies. It's possible that easily achieving the presentation you want isn't possible here, or is only possible with the CSS upgrade and CSS editing skills that you don't currently have. Take it all into consideration before deciding whether spending an hour formatting each post is worth it, or spending a week learning CSS is.

I guess there's not much to do other than to go along with what has already been suggested (to copy from word on to notepad and from there to WP). The reason i haven't tried this yet, is because the article is rather long (10 pages to be correct) and would take too much time.

About the "paste to word" option, don't you mean "paste FROM word"? If that's it then, this is what I used to do and while it works for shorter articles without too many problems, it doesn't cut it with the long articles : /

@Raincoster

I think you're right. But I mean even if I were to choose the upgraded version, I'd probably still have questions and bother you people :-p

Actually it's just about getting a hang of things as Cj mentioned. It's nice to know how things work, so that you'll be able to take advantage of the options that you have and maybe improve along the way.

I'm sorry it didn't work out quite the way you'd hoped, but at least you have a better idea now of what you can and can't do on WP. I think most people have only ever tried pasting in shorter articles, so I can see how that might have been a problem... also if it's in Danish, it might have had some extra formatting on it. 3 hours is brutal, though... ouch.

For what it's worth, I really don't like Word. I write 300 page novels and I can't describe the amount of problems I've had because of Word in the past; formatting, converting it for other computers... I alternate between OpenOffice and GoogleDocs now, but even those cause problems sometimes. I think in the end it's a choice between settling for something everybody can see, or working at it to get it just right. Maybe there's a balance between the two, but I'm still looking. :)